Red and white, but mostly blue

He’ll be the first to tell you much is to be desired from his football team. All that lacked from an unforgettable regular season in 2009 was a toast of the bubbly. But Steve Sanzo knows that his brilliant campaign as a rookie head coach is now but a blur in the review mirror.

It’s been three seasons since Palmyra-Macedon made school history, becoming the first-ever team in the school’s now 72-year history to post an undefeated regular season and win the Finger Lakes East trophy. But the Red Raiders endured a major hiccup a week later, where, as the No. 1-seeded team in Class B, they fell in the opening-round of the sectional tournament to the lowest seed. It was only the second time in school history Pal-Mac entered the postseason with a No. 1 seed.

Winning all the first seven games of his coaching career, the Sanzo-led Red Raiders have posted a combined 7-11 record since — including one win by forfeit — and the program in general has endured nine of its last 11 seasons with four wins or fewer. Pal-Mac began its 2011 campaign with a 1-2 mark, but despite making a strong push toward the finish with a 3-1 run to cap the regular season, the red-and-white failed yet again to make noise in the postseason. The Red Raiders have never won a sectional title.

An average onlooker will exhale in relief knowing that both Hornell, the three-time reigning New York state champion, Bath-Haverling and Elba-Byron-Bergen have all dropped down into Class C this season. But Honeoye Falls-Lima is now part of Class B, and they’re likely to assume the same dominance Hornell achieved.

But regardless of those Class B woes, getting the Red Raiders out of the same, tired old routine of being a .500 ball club is top priority on the agenda. And sadly, if it hasn’t already begun in the weight room, it’s likely to be another win-one-lose-one season for Sanzo’s squad.

Tom Brady can know how to throw a football, but if he ain’t got the arm strength to do it he’s useless. Ray Lewis can know exactly when to blitz, where to blitz and what to do after he blitz’s. But if Lewis doesn’t have the steak and potatoes on his bones to punish the ball carrier, he’s going to become one with the earth.

Call them the Big Red Machine all you want, but that so-called red-and-white football thunder coming from F. Theodore Deci Field on Friday night’s is nothing more than stripes on a barbershop pole until Webster’s true definition of the word “dedication” is defined between the harsh marks and bench press like it’s a religion.

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